The Christmas season is the time of year when many salon businesses appreciate their existing customers with exciting holiday specials. Are you a salon owner? This article discusses salon holiday promotion ideas to increase retention, attract new customers and convert them into loyal clientele.
What is Salon Holiday Promotion Ideas
Holiday sales promo ideas are some of the most effective marketing tools that salons can use to increase customer satisfaction and sales and build brand awareness. Different businesses have used sales promotions successfully over the years.
Whether you are running a startup or an already established salon business, you have various sales promotion techniques. While Christmas promotions are available in multiple forms, they all focus on convincing the target audience to become loyal customers of a specific business.
Salon owners can announce holiday marketing ideas through free channels such as email, social media, or websites. An effective promotion exercise uses logic, effective copy, and imagery to appeal to the target audience’s emotions, values, and needs. It also invites them to buy your services and products with an exciting offer.
How can a Salon Offer Discounts for Holiday Promotion Ideas?
For years, discounting has encouraged existing and potential customers to buy services or products. It can be an effective marketing strategy only if salon marketers adhere to various best practices, as we shall see below.
A Free Beauty or Hair Gift
Attaching a holiday gift with every purchase increases the expected value of the service or product in the customer’s mind. Consider giving your customers:
- Free hair treatment with each color
- A small moisturizer with each facial
- A salon holiday gift card
- A complimentary nail filing service or polish
To make this process profitable, you want to include strict terms and conditions and an expiry date to create a sense of urgency. Contact your suppliers and figure out whether they can give you freebies, special prices, and samples.
Referral Discounts
Giving your existing customers a bonus goes a long way in attracting new clients. Send your loyal customers a special note thanking them for referring their friends to your salon and conclude the letter with a bonus or discount for their next visit. Such exciting messages and rewards boost customer loyalty while encouraging them to bring in more referrals.
Bring a Friend Promotion
Bring a friend promotion is one of the most popular beauty and hair salon promotional ideas. Nearly every salon has used this concept to attract more customers. Every participant wins from this arrangement.
As the salon gains a new client, the existing customer who brought them gets a discount or reward. Exercise caution when using this concept to ensure your bonus is sustainable. To keep existing customers up to speed with hair salon promotions, you can email or bulk SMS to send messages. You can also use social media to reach out to a broader audience.
What are some ways to Promote Salons During the Holiday Season?
You can leverage some salon Christmas marketing ideas to increase your customer base and boost revenue.
Assume the Santa Position in Your Salon
Everybody loves receiving gifts. Why not become Santa this holiday by holding contests and Christmas giveaways on social media? You don’t want to wait until the last minute to develop a marketing plan. Start experimenting with your creative capabilities early enough. Here are some ideas you can begin with.
· Best Christmas Selfie Contest
Pictures are holidays are conjoined. Organize a contest on your social media pages and have your followers post their photos and tag your spa or salon. Choose two to three winners to receive discounts or add-on service.
· Christmas Wishlist
Ask your followers to curate a wishlist template of your spa or salon products or services and post it on their stories or comment on your post. Choose the winner via a lucky draw and grant them their wishlist.
Consider organizing other contests that appeal to your audience. At the end of the competition, your salon will benefit by getting new customers and increased social media engagement and reach.
· Create a Salon Selfie Station
Social media is a powerful free marketing tool. Amplify the excitement that comes with the holiday season with a selfie station. Include Christmas-themed props that clients can pose with and post the pictures on their social media platforms.
Include your salon logo, name, and related hashtags on all selfie backdrops to ensure they appear in the images your customers post on their pages. You can use this strategy across the year with different props for different holidays. For example, use pumpkins for Halloween or hearts for Valentine’s Day.
· Create Christmas Gift Packages and Baskets
Quality and packaging are more critical during the holiday season. Include a gift card inside pre-packaged retail products, use attractive wrapping paper, and have your clients present them to their loved ones. Packages containing some of your best sellers encourage your clients to buy some for themselves. You can even invite people to an event at your salon where they can watch a product tutorial as they mingle under a cup of coffee. Attendants can receive excellent discounts for same-day appointments.
· Target Mini-Offers
During the holiday, people are always in a rush. To provide the best experience, consider offering mini-packages to ease their schedules. A simple and fast styling session encourages customers to book their service amid other tasks.
· Offer Christmas Gifts to Loyal Customers
A loyal customer base determines the success of your spa or salon business. The Christmas holiday is the perfect time to appreciate the support and love your customers have shown you across the year. You can actualize this strategy by:
- Gifting them special Christmas boxes filled with love. Include small candles, chocolates, discount coupons, and decoration items. Wrap them with Christmas-themed holiday gift papers and insert a personalized note thanking them for doing business with you.
- Use the holiday season to acquire more loyal customers through your existing ones. Offer them discounts on their three visits when they bring a friend or refer a loved one.
- Grant loyal customers higher discounts than you give the general public. Charge them less for retail items and beauty services
Through these gestures, loyal customers will feel loved and valued and make you their go-to service provider.
Christmas Holiday Salon Marketing Ideas
Spas and salons are usually fully booked in December, keeping hairstylists on their toes during the entire holiday season. However, the first months of the new year are often less busy. To overcome this scenario, salon owners can offer customers irresistible discounts and allow them to pre-book their January and February appointments during the Christmas period. Doing so helps you kickstart your year in style. Here are fun Christmas holiday salon marketing ideas you should try.
· Create a Christmas-Themed Website
As you decorate your salon in preparation for the Christmas holiday, add a festive mood to your salon website. Include engaging content and attractive salon pictures. Remember, the holidays come with increased orders, and your clients will likely escalate. Consider including details of your extended working hours to keep your clients informed. Include reviews from satisfied clients and details of discounts available in your salon. Do you have any special plans for the holiday season? Include them on your website.
· Hold a Christmas Party at the Salon
Usually, having a solid relationship with your clients plays a huge role in promoting business longevity. Organize a Christmas party this holiday and invite your loyal customers. The party will encourage the customer spirit, friendship, and loyalty and create an opportunity for referral marketing. Remember, you don’t have to break the bank to organize the party.
· Redecorate Your Salon
Use pretty bows and ribbons to redecorate your salon and prepare it for Christmas. Use Christmas lighting too to create a festive mood. Where possible, consider replacing your old salon furniture with new ones. Decorate your salon trolleys, cabinets, and other furniture with Christmas-themed accessories. Beautiful decoration will attract passersby and who knows, they could become your regular clients.
· Hashtag it
For small business owners to succeed in this digital age, they must master the art of using social media and the internet to their advantage. Facebook and Instagram are some of the most popular channels you can use to market your salon brand. For potential clients to find your business consider creating a memorable and unique hashtag for your brand’s Christmas campaign. Doing so sets you apart from your competitors in your region and allows you to monitor your campaign.
· Post Tutorials
Post live tutorials to demonstrate the latest hair colors and styles clients can try this season. Doing so enables your potential clients to understand your skill and prepare themselves for the experience.
Experts say that customers who watched tutorials to learn about a service or product eventually bought it. Today, buyers have limited time to real long product descriptions and product reviews. Instead, they prefer watching a product in action, and videos can do that in record time.
As you demonstrate different hairstyles, ensure the products you are using are well displayed. Explain to your viewers how to use the products, their benefits, and how their hair will feel. Doing that will encourage them to purchase the products.
· Attract Your Irregular Clients
The most common customers in your salon could be women of a specific group. However, some people hardly visit the spa or salon like the elderly, men, and kids. Christmas can be the ideal time to give these customers holiday incentives. Here are some special promotional offers you can introduce to them.
Discounts for seniors, males, and young customers on some of your common services. For example, a haircut is a common service for kids, and you can offer relaxing massages and facials for the elderly. Introduce facial hair services for male customers.
Encourage existing customers to tag their family members for a discount, especially those under these groups. Doing so is a great opportunity for your frequent customers to enjoy your services at discounted prices as their loved ones experience your services for the first time.
Combine the services to form irresistible packages for specific groups. For instance, package a facial hair trim, a haircut, and a facial massage for your male customers. Have a full body massage and throw in a facial for your elderly customers.
Emphasize the experience your customers can expect in your email marketing promotions. Customer experience is all that matters, especially for the elderly group.
Finally
Adopting the right holiday salon marketing ideas helps you set the festive mood in your establishment, improve customer experience, and boost revenue. With a few months to go before the Christmas holiday, you want to start planning early to avoid making rushed and uninformed decisions. Use the tips in this article as a stepping stone towards achieving your marketing goals for your salon during the holiday season.